TWiG 2008-11-09: Call In Sick Week

On Tuesday, November 11, many educational institutions and places of employment in the United States will give their students and employees a day off for Veterans Day, as the day is set aside for the recognizing of the contributions and sacrifices that our armed forces make for the sake of the rest of us. A pair of releases this week will have an awful lot of people wishing they could take the entire week.

First up is the release most associated with Veterans Day, a game whose Tuesday release is obviously no accident: Call of Duty: World at War. Honestly, I think it’s a risky move for Activision to be releasing a fifth Call of Duty game even as the fourth in the series remains the top Xbox Live draw. The release of a new edition of the game, while it will undoubtedly sell gobs of copies based solely on the success of its predecessor, will likely split the Call of Duty online audience, which may well generate some confusion as to which game is the “must-have” of the online shooter group. This isn’t even to mention that Activision has gone back to Treyarch—if you’ll remember, they developed the oft-maligned Call of Duty 3—for this one, and Treyarch has gone back to World War II for their source material. Despite all of the caveats, however, there’s simply no way that any online shooter fan will be without this game come Tuesday.

Wait a couple of days, though, and you may notice that the streets will be a little quieter, the traffic a little lighter…as Wrath of the Lich King finally (finally!) arrives on Thursday. The latest World of Warcraft expansion has been hyped and anticipated for so long, it’s actually something of a wonder it’s been able to maintain the sort of anticipation that’ll lead to the millions of sales come Thursday, but it has and then some. I don’t need to sell this one—it’ll fly off the shelves no matter what I tell you.

Past those two utterly tremendous releases, the DS has a few releases that might just be enough to pique your interest. Populous DS is probably something I’ll end up with, simply because the thought of randomly popping hills up underneath people I don’t like while on the subway is terribly appealing. My Stop Smoking Coach with Allen Carr is an incredibly intriguing release, in that I’ll be curious to see a) whether it sells, and b) whether any testimonials start coming out saying that it actually works. It sounds utterly ridiculous, but for a nicotine-addicted gamer, it may be the ticket to sticking to a plan. And there’s Tecmo Bowl! Tecmo Bowl! It’s almost enough to make you forget that there’s another DS Guitar Hero on its way too.

Oh jeez, I just realized I went four paragraphs without mentioning Mirror’s Edge. Good Lord. This is truly a great year.

What are you playing this week? Or are you just broke from buying all of the other stuff that’s come out? Let us know, and while you’re thinking, check out the list of releases and the pair of trailers after the jump!